NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS
VOLUME XXIV
SEVENTH MEMOIR
BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR
OF
EDWARD OSCAR ULRICH
1857—1944
BY
RUDOLF RUEDEMANN
PRESENTED TO THE ACADEMY AT THE ANNUAL MEETING, 1946
EDWARD OSCAR ULRICH
1857-1944
BY RUDOLF RUEDEMANN
I met Doctor Ulrich for the first time when in 1903 he came
to Dr. Clarke with a request from the U. S. Geological Survey
that geologists of the New York Survey should take him over
our Cambrian, Ordovician and Silurian formations. I was
assigned to take him over the Cambrian and Ordovician.
So we started out up the Hudson River, stopped at Whitehall, went through the Champlain basin, skirted around the
Adirondacks in the north and returned by way of the Black
River Valley to Utica where another geologist was to meet us
and take Ulrich over the Silurian. The geologist in question
had not appeared, apparently afraid of Ulrich's superior knowledge, and I took him also over our Silurian.
Wherever we stopped and I showed him the geologic section, Ed would say: "It is not so!" A hot discussion would
always follow. After a few days of steady arguing, I became
exhausted and quit disputing. Then Ulrich said: "If you quit
disputing, I will go home. I always develop my ideas going
out with others and disputing theirs." I then changed my
tactics and when we came to a new outcrop, I pretended not
to be sure and asked him about it. Ulrich was a born teacher
and loved to be asked. He would at once take up the problem
and give me full information and I learned a lot that way.
His knowledge of fossils as well as of Paleozoic formations
in America was absolutely uncanny and sufficient to crush any
adversary. He identified the fossils at sight, I quietly noted
down the names and later reidentified the material and found
all identifications correct! Likewise, his memory was incredible.
I took him years later to sections we had studied on that first
trip and he remembered every foot of them.
His unfailing memory and his universal knowledge of the
Paleozoic fossils and formations were his most outstanding
accomplishments. Add to this his strong health, his ever-fiery
enthusiasm and an outstanding scientist without any peer in his
field was the result.
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Ulrich was largely self-educated. Regarding the fascinating
facts of his youth and education, I may refer the reader to the
appreciative account written by his life-long friend and colleague, Dr. Ray S. Bassler for the Geological Society of America (Memorial to Edward Oscar Ulrich, Proc. Geol. Soc. Am.
for 1944, pp. 331-351.).
I became well acquainted with the problems which were nearest to his heart on a trip my wife and I made with Doctor and
Mrs. Ulrich to Europe in 1922, where they attended the International Geological Congress in Belgium. We travelled together to Sweden, where I discovered that Ulrich went there
principally for the purpose of looking for his Ozarkian system
while I wanted to see the Swedish graptolite shales. Swedish
geologists took us around through the interesting and pretty
country but to my great sorrow no trace of the Ozarkian could
be found. It was a tragedy, made still more harrowing by
Mrs. Ulrich's illness.
In Sweden Mrs. Ulrich showed first signs of this illness and
in Switzerland she became seriously ill. A Swiss specialist
diagnosed the case as much advanced diabetes and told us that
she might go any time into a coma. Upon hearing this Mrs.
Ulrich asked to return at once to the States, as she did not want
to die in a foreign country. So we left, missing our Bohemian
trip which I had worked out. Ulrich had to engage a nurse
for the trip. He was very fortunate to secure the services of
Miss Lydia Sennhauser of Adorf, a graduate nurse of the Red
Cross school and a woman of exceptional ability and pleasant
character. She stayed with Mrs. Ulrich as long as her entry
permit allowed.
Mrs. Ulrich bore her fatal disease with sublime courage and
patience until her death ten years later. She had been a schoolteacher in Cincinnati and had been a wonderful helpmate
in the years when Ulrich with a small income was struggling to
find recognition. She had a pleasant voice and liked to sing
when we were among ourselves in the evening. My wife and
I have very fond memories of her.
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EDWARD OSCAR ULRICH
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Eddie became a paleontologist when he was seven years old.
lie found a rock-pile near his home in Covington across the
river from Cincinnati, where he was born February 1, 1857,
the son of a former French officer and later contractor and
builder. The rocks and fossils had been thrown out by the
Rev. Henry Herzer, a minister who had made himself a reputation as a collector and student of the local fossils. The minister told him they were "fossils, ancient animals turned to
stone." The kind minister instructed the wide-awake boy how
to collect fossils and where to find them in the neighborhood.
Thus started an interest and a career that never flagged in a
long life and enriched American geology and paleontology beyond belief.
Ulrich was original in everything he undertook. He showed
that early in life, when he assumed the name Oscar after the
hero in one of the early stories he read, and did not go through
the various collecting stages of boys, as collecting coins, postage
stamps, etc., but remained steadfast to his first interest, Cincinnati fossils.
He attended the public schools intermittently owing to his
delicate physique until 1872, when he was able to finish gradeschool at the age of fifteen. As, owing to his splendid memory,
it was easy for him to keep up his school work, he found much
spare time to increase his collection of fossils. After leaving
school the excavations for the Eden Park Reservoir of Cincinnati were started. Here was an opportunity for more collecting in the type outcrops of fossils from Eden shale. He applied
for a job with the water-works and being tall for his age, secured
one as a rodman. He held this job for two years, using his
spare time in roaming the Cincinnati hills for fossils. When
I went to Cincinnati on a visit, I took my wife over these hills
in memory of Ulrich and she enjoyed the beautiful views of the
Ohio Valley.
The Reverend Herzer, a trustee of the German Wallace and
Baldwin College at Berea, Ohio, was able to get Ed's father to
persuade the boy to try for college work. At the age of 17,
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in spite of the lack of high school training, he passed the examinations for entrance to the sophomore class of that college.
The boy, however, was not at all enthusiastic as he insisted
that he was taught too much he did not need and too little
that he did. So he turned to other occupations; he became
captain of the baseball team and later the science teacher, appreciating his love for geology, put him in charge of the school
collection. Training at the college was designed for entrance
into the ministry, but this did not appeal at all and he returned
home without graduating. Later the college recognized his
attainments by conferring upon him the degrees of A.M. in 1886
and Ph.D. in 1892.
The following year his father and his uncle, a physician, prevailed upon him to attend medical school at the old Pulte and
Ohio Medical Colleges at Cincinnati. Two winter terms of the
medical school were sufficient to bring Edward back to his
geology in 1877.
A turning point in Edward's life came in the autumn of 1877,
when Dr. R. M. Byrnes invited him to join the Cincinnati
Society of Natural History. The following spring the Society,
pleased by Edward's enthusiasm, appointed him honorary
curator of paleontology. When later the society was enabled
by a bequest to buy a commodious building it hired Edward as
caretaker in charge at $30 a month. In the following year,
when Ulrich published his first scientific paper, he was put in
charge of the natural history collections with a small salary,
which required the utmost frugality such as fitting up a living
room in his father's carpenter shop.
The year 1878 was also important due to the fact that then
the 20 year old Charles Schuchert, working in his father's furniture business, commenced to attend the meetings of the Natural
History Society and began to bring fossils for identification,
thereby beginning his life-long acquaintanceship and later partnership with Ulrich in some important publications. The two
inquisitive spirits of Ulrich and Schuchert delved also into other
subjects as spiritualism, which then swept the country. As both
had good voices, they had roles for several seasons in local
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EDWARD OSCAR ULRICH
RUEDEMANN
amateur productions of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas. Ulrich
even told me once that he wondered at that time whether he
should not develop himself into an opera singer. Fortunately
for geology and paleontology he did not follow up that inclination. Ulrich formed at that time the center of a group of young
men whose interest in geology and paleontology he developed
and who became prominent scientists. Among them should be
mentioned especially Ray S. Bassler and John M. Nickles,
besides Schuchert.
An interesting episode of Ulrich's life that followed was his
appointment as superintendent of the Little Caribou Silver
Mines, a camp about twenty miles west of Boulder, Colorado,
where some fifty silver-lead prospects were awaiting development. Ed used to tell me about his experiences there, and his
boyhood friend Henry Dickhaut who went with him told me
more. The story was how once while horseback riding out in
the country he was overcome by a blizzard and became so faint
that he left the bridle to his horse, which took him to a farmhouse and saved his life. Dickhaut told me that Ulrich discharged a miner, who was a two-gun man and did not work but
was kept on the pay roll because everybody was afraid of him.
The gunman stayed around in the saloons advertising the fact
that he was going to shoot Ulrich at sight. A day or two after
Ulrich and Dickhaut met the gunman coming toward them with
a couple of cronies. It was a question who could first pull the
gun. Dickhaut said in a loud tone to Ulrich: "I bet you two
dollars you cannot hit the top of that small spruce tree over
there." Ulrich pulled his gun and shot it off. The two parties
passed each other quietly and the gunman left the camp. Another time Ulrich saw a miner working awkwardly at the edge
of a pit. He took the bar away from the miner to show him
how to handle it, slipped and disappeared in the pit. Everybody thought he was killed, but soon they heard him yell to
be pulled out. He told me that he saved himself by throwing
himself from one side of the pit to the other and fortunately
landed on a pile of soft earth. Dickhaut also told me how Ed,
when he worked for his father as a carpenter, once crawled out
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on a fresh brick wall. The wall began to sway so that everybody yelled at him to lie down quietly, and the fire department
had to be called to bring him down with a ladder. His father's
language is not preserved for record. These and other adventures characterize Ulrich's audacity which was liable to bring
his companions into dangerous positions and brought about
some of my own strenuous experiences with him.
The job in Colorado lasted only two years because the ore
proved scarce and finally the paymaster ran away to South
America. Ulrich came home to his father's shop with new experiences in both geology and life. He continued to live solely
through his carpentry work, but found time nevertheless for
the description of various local fossils. Schuchert, who had
learned to do lithographic work, urged this method of illustration on Ulrich. Both commenced drawing and in time became
skilled in producing through the camera lucida natural size and
enlarged views of fossils upon the stone and etching the slab
afterward for printing.
With these means of illustration Ulrich now published six
preliminary papers in the Journal of the Cincinnati Society of
Natural History and his three more pretentious papers on
American Paleozoic Bryozoa (1882-84). In these articles he
described many new genera and species based upon the microscopic structure as shown in thin sections. Although these
papers formed the foundation for the modern knowledge of
stony Bryozoa they gave their author the reputation of a species
maker, an unfair criticism which clung to him and affected his
life for the next twenty years. He divided the cosmopolitan
Monticulipora petropolitana into at least a dozen different genera
and several times that number of species, which was too much
to be believed. I remember a sarcastic note printed at that
time to the effect that he received three small branchlets of a
single bryozoan stock from three different men and described
all as different species, utterly untrue but characteristic of the
venom of some of his critics.
Schuchert urged Ulrich to seek employment in describing and
illustrating the chapter on Bryozoa in one of the state surveys
264
EDWARD OSCAR ULRICH
RUEDEMANN
which then were contemplating large works on paleontology.
As a result A. H. Worthen, Director of the Illinois Geological
Survey, offered Ulrich a contract for the illustration of
Volume 8.
This fine lithographic work paid Ulrich well enough to set
up housekeeping at 1004 Central Avenue, Newport, an address
that became well known to visiting American and European
geologists. He married in 1886 Albertina Zuest, a schoolteacher who combined an appreciation of paleontology with a
fine regard for good housekeeping neatness and thus made an
ideal helpmate for a scientist. I learned to admire her on our
European trip in 1922.
Ulrich's fine work on Volume 8 led to his engagement by
Dr. N. H. Winchell to describe and illustrate the Ordovician
Bryozoa for the Paleontology of Minnesota. Schuchert, who
had lost his furniture business through a fire, joined him and
lived with him at his Newport home. Ulrich's memoir on the
Bryozoa and Schuchert's on the Brachiopoda became fundamental standard works on these two classes of fossils for American paleontologists.
In the latter part of 1888 James Hall, who was collecting
material for use in his brachiopod monograph, Volume VIII,
Paleontology of New York, came to Cincinnati and, impressed
by Schuchert's ability and enthusiasm, as well as his fine brachiopod collection, invited him to return with him to Albany.
Schuchert accepted and thus started on his long and successful
career in the east.
Ulrich devoted the following three years to the reports on
Paleozoic Bryozoa and Sponges for the Illinois Survey and then
spent a year on the final report on the Minnesota Bryozoa.
While the active geological operations were suspended in Minnesota for iy% years in 1888-1890, Ulrich was busy in field
and office work for the Kentucky Survey, working out the
classification and tracing the formations of Mississippian and
Pennsylvanian ages in the western part of the state. He worked
• out reports on the geology of Caldwell and Crittenden counties,
which failed of being printed because of the Governor's veto
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of the appropriation for geology. In these reports Ulrich recorded the discovery of two recurrences of the lithology and
fauna of the celebrated Warsaw or Spergen Hill deposits; the
location of a strip of coal bearing land, a mile wide and 8 miles
long; the presence of several peridotite dikes, and that the
numerous fluorspar, lead and zinc deposits of western Kentucky
are true fissure veins and not mere local deposits in eroded
cavities as had heretofore been held. His conclusions were later
verified by the Federal Survey in Professional Paper 36 (1905).
Ulrich was always fascinated by fossils that had been neglected
by others because of the difficulties of their study and the necessity of thin sections. The most important of them were the
bryozoans. He continued to study them with the resumption
of his work in Minnesota. His 1882-1884 classification of the
Paleozoic Bryozoa was elaborated in the 1890 paper, which
formed the greater part of Volume 8 of the Illinois Survey, and
again in 1895 in the report of the Geological Survey of Minnesota. The work has stood the test of criticism and remained
the basis for the study of these puzzling fossils. True to his
dedication to the neglected groups, he, at the same time, took
up the study of the American Paleozoic sponges, which also
required thin sections. The results were also published in collaboration with Oliver Everett, who had collected many fine
specimens for Volume 8 of the Illinois Survey. Next followed
the Ostracoda, which received attention in several smaller
articles in 1891-1892 and the monograph of 1897 on the Paleontology of Minnesota. The ostracodes always remained his
pets. I still remember how we two were approaching a railroad station when he noticed some ostracodes in a rock by the
roadside, sat down and collected furiously while we missed our
train and dinner. Another time on the island of Gotland he
saw some ostracodes in an abandoned quarry and forgot all his
work intended for the day; but I also remember that when
we were once "at sea" about the age of a rock ledge in the
woods of New York state he knocked out some ostracodes and
determined the age of the rock. True to his fascination for
neglected fossils he next took up the Ordovician Lamellibranch266
EDWARD OSCAR ULRICH
RUEDEMANN
iata and Gastropoda and published three memoirs in the Minnesota Paleontology and in Volume 7 of the Ohio Geological
Survey. These papers, also, have proved of fundamental importance for later work by others, the writer included.
The last of the local amateurs to join the Ulrich association
of aspiring collectors was Ray S. Bassler, then a fifteen-year-old
high school freshman, who, encouraged by the school principal,
went to Newport and timidly called upon the august man and
was invited to come as student assistant whenever time from
school permitted. Bassler helped Ulrich for eight years. Thus
started one of the most fortunate associations that proved wonderfully fertile for science, for Bassler became the world's leading student of fossil bryozoans. A third member of the group
was Nickles, who wrote the first systematic account of Cincinnatian stratigraphy and became the bibliographer of the Federal
Geological Survey. Later, under the auspices of the Geological
Society of America, he published the bibliographies of the
geology of the world, exclusive of North America.
Several months were spent for a Newport firm on exploratory
work for phosphate, but the approach of the depression at the
end of the century brought prospecting in the Central Basin
to an end and hard days came for the free lance geologist.
Ulrich had to put up his collections as collateral at the banks
to keep home and laboratory going. It was fortunate in these
dark days that he could sell collections of thin sections of
Bryozoa to the British Museum, the University of Munich and
other institutions in both Europe and America, and thus could
keep going for several years. It required hard work as the
sections had to be ground by hand on a sandstone slab. This
recalls to the writer that he ground the material for his early
papers on an old iron stove lid.
Recognition for the scientist, already 40 years old, was slow
in coming in spite of his outstanding work. A break came in
1897, when a collector was needed by the Federal Survey to
make another attempt to find fossils in the disputed Ocoee slates
of eastern Tennessee. At the suggestion of Dr. C. Willard
Hayes he was given a trial at the job. Although he failed, as
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had all previous collectors, he impressed Doctor Hayes by his
sound work and was shortly afterward invited to assist him in
mapping the Columbia, Tennessee, quadrangle. This led to his
permanent appointment on the Federal Survey.
Ulrich had now the opportunity to apply his knowledge of
fossils to broader studies in correlation, paleogeography and
diastrophism and he made the most of it. It became evident
with the many folios under preparation that the old time stratigraphic divisions, such as the Trenton limestone, would have
to be subdivided before the finer details of structure could be
depicted on a map. Ulrich now plunged into problems in
stratigraphy and correlation, and true to his thorough nature
he had to see for himself. This was the time when he came
to New York and the writer took him for six weeks over the
Cambrian, Ordovician and Silurian terranes of the State.
Ulrich, until his retirement in 1932, undoubtedly saw more
Paleozoic geology from the Rockies eastward than any other
person. Owing to his incredibly retentive memory he was
always able to enter a discussion on any Paleozoic formation
and he had buried in his memory an overwhelming amount of
facts. I recall, on our trip to Europe together, that one day
when sitting on the deck of the steamer looking out at the sea
I said casually that I had come to the conclusion that the graptolites (an extinct class of organism of great importance for
intercontinental correlation of strata) are related to the bryozoans. Ulrich said: "I have known that for 15 years." I wondered and asked on what grounds. He said: "They have ooecia
like bryozoans." I then proposed a joint paper, which was published later. I had observed on splendid material I collected
in Oklahoma muscle-scars that convinced me of their relationship to bryozoans. When later I studied the graptolite collections of the U. S. Geological Survey which I had borrowed
I found specimens with Ulrich's label pointing to the small
sacs attached to the rhabdosomes as "probable ooecia such as
bryozoans have"!
Ulrich was now occupied mainly with work on folios. He
published the Columbia Folio with C. Willard Hayes in 1903.
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EDWARD OSCAR ULRICH
RUEDEMANN
There were publications on the western Kentucky lead and zinc
district with W. S. Tangier Smith, on copper deposits in the
Mississippi Valley with H. Foster Bain, and a number of other
folios. The first of these were the Tahlequah, Winslow and
Muskogee quadrangles of Oklahoma with Mr. Taff. It was
while working on these quadrangles that Ulrich met and hired
as assistant, a young student, Rector Mesler, whom he brought
with him to Washington and who remained his assistant until
Ulrich's death.
There followed the Fayetteville, Ark., folio with George I.
Adams, and the Yellville, Ark., Mineral Point, Wise, and the
four Big Horn Mountain folios. On the Wisconsin work he
became acquainted with the state geologist Dr. W. O. Hotchkiss (later president of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute)
and a close friendship sprang up. The two families used to
visit each other annually, the men spending their time in looking
over the geological field.
Of especial importance was Ulrich's connection with the
folios covering the Appalachian Mountain system. This field
work, especially in connection with George W. Stose, resulted
in the revision and mapping of the Shenandoah limestone and
its component units. A whole series of folios, starting with the
Mercersburg-Chambersburg and other Pennsylvania folios, was
taken up by these authors as far south as the Birmingham, Ala.,
quadrangle, mapped by Charles Butts. Among these folios are
the Pawpaw-Hancock folio of Maryland, the Belmont, Allentown, and Reading folios of Pennsylvania, and the Eureka
Springs and Harrison quadrangles of Arkansas. He was persistently busy in those years preparing stratigraphic and paleontologic reports for the folios and monographs of the Geological
Survey, and he was, so to say, the final authority on all problems
that the mapping geologists of the Survey encountered in their
work. I always found him busy handing out advice to others.
None of this important work is reflected in his bibliography,
but it led to the publication of his master work: Revision of
the Paleozoic Systems (1911). This became my bible on
geologic problems and it will be a safe guide, for all coming
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geologists. In this Revision he explains the principles of stratigraphy and proposes radical changes in the classification. The
most important part of the Revision is the proposition and description of two new systems, the Ozarkian and Canadian. He
made those systems by taking part of the upper Cambrian and
lower Ordovician, claiming important breaks above and below
these systems. I know from his attitude that he considered
the creation of these two systems as the crowning achievement
of his career. With these two systems he advanced into line
with Murchison, Sedgwick and Lapworth. I shall always remember how Ulrich, Cushing and I roamed New York to find
the breaks in the Little Falls dolomite. It was arduous work
and the two friends, Ulrich and Cushing, fought all day long.
I went along quietly so that they would not both jump on me.
I also remember how unhappy Ulrich was in 1922 in Sweden,
when he could not locate the Ozarkian in spite of the help of
the friendly Swedish geologists.
Bassler writes: "Doctor Ulrich believed that these new systems were based on criteria similar to those used in separating
the well known Cambrian, Silurian, etc. The Ozarkian, he
thought, shows the same sequence of diastrophic events and
develops as great a thickness of marine deposits as any of the
previously established systems. The published records of the
Canadian showed this to be equally true for it. Believing that
the Ozarkian rocks rest on the top of the typical Upper Cambrian
and below any separated as the Canadian, he considered that
its 8,000 feet of limestone in the Ozark uplift and the Appalachian Valley certainly represented a sufficient time interval
for consideration of it as a system. He acknowledged that the
described Ozarkian faunas were too few in species to afford a
good argument but the known undescribed species, especially
the straight and curved cephalopods and the numerous coiled
gastropods absent in the Cambrian faunas and so different from
the wealth of graptolites and the first of the coiled cephalopods
of the Canadian, were certainly sufficiently diagnostic. Objections to these new systems arose, and todav there seems to be a
tendency to recognize the Canadian as valid and to abandon the
Ozarkian by referring its strata to the Canadian and the Cambrian. Time and more investigations, including particularly the
publication of more complete paleontological evidence, will
bring the truth."
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EDWARD OSCAR ULRICH
RUEDEMANN
Ulrich, Foerste and others in recent years published the descriptions of the Ozarkian cephalopods, and Ulrich and Cooper
the descriptions of the Ozarkian brachiopods.
On Ulrich's fifty-fourth birthday, February 1, 1911, Rector
Duvall Mesler was appointed as Ulrich's personal assistant, a
position he held to the end of both their lives. Rec, a student
of geology at the University of Arkansas under Professor A.
H. Purdue, had been recommended to Ulrich while working in
the southwest and Ulrich brought him back with him to Washington. Rec was the ideal assistant for Ulrich. An excellent
collector and skilled preparator, he relieved Ulrich of many
annoying tasks at the office and also at home. He never married and always lived with the Ulrichs. My wife and I
when visiting there always admired and wondered at his devotion. He showed it in a sublime way by passing out of life
on the day of Ulrich's burial. His life work was done. He
had no selfish ambition for himself, and indeed he did his part
in forwarding our science. He showed his friendship and kindness by giving my wife a chance to see Washington and its
beautiful surroundings, Ulrich himself having no time to waste
on scenery. The latter's mind was so set on work that even
in Sweden and Switzerland he refused to spend an hour, much
less a day, in seeing and admiring the landscape. He had a
one-track mind and a single purpose and interest in life. That
may be the underlying cause for the greatness of many a man.
No perplexing problems in the geologic work at the Survey
were sidestepped. Such a one was the black shale problem
connected with the question of the Devonian or Mississippian
age of the Chattanooga formation. The modest paper on the
subject published in 1912 gives no inkling of the work spent
on the problem in the field and laboratory. Jt led to a general
discussion of the problem by various authors with diverse conclusions.
The next task came when the Maryland Geological Survey
delegated Ulrich to prepare1 the chapters on several groups of
organisms, particularly the Ostracoda. The Silurian volume,
although intended as a taxonomic study, owing to Ulrich's
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thoroughness developed into a stately volume on the stratigraphy
as well as generic and specific descriptions of the Ostracoda.
After the completion of this work the Chester controversy,
based primarily on the correlation of certain Upper Mississippian formations, attracted Ulrich's attention on account of its
bearing on the principles involved. The work necessitated extensive field work with Charles Butts and others in western
Kentucky and adjoining states. The results were published
between 1916 and 1926.
Ulrich's monthly reports to the Director during this period
reveal an amazing amount of work on quadrangles all over
the eastern and central United States from Wisconsin and
Michigan to Maryland in the east and it is a characteristic of
Ulrich that his associates in the field, as Hotchkiss in Wisconsin, Buehler in Missouri and Butts and Stose in the south and
east became his close friends and admirers. They all loved
him for his knowledge and honesty and frankness of opinion.
Biologists have divided investigators into splitters and lumpers. Ulrich, owing to his keen, discerning mind, was above all
a splitter, both in his stratigraphic work and in his descriptive
work on fossils, but he could also become a lumper when he
was looking for general principles and conclusions.
Of the continuous stream of papers that flowed from his pen,
usually in collaboration with young men, we will mention papers
on the Revision of the Paleozoic Bryozoa (with Bassler) in
1904-1905 ; also with Bassler, New American Paleozoic Ostracoda in 1908; on cystids and crinoids between 1921-1928; on
conodonts (with Bassler) in 1926; with Resser, several trilobite
articles in 1930; and (also with Bassler) a monograph on Cambrian bivalved crustaceans in 1931 and with Cooper on Ozarkian
and Canadian Brachiopoda in 1938. Ulrich was usually at work
on several papers. Once when I was in his office he spread
out 17 papers before me and said: "Ruedemann, you will have
to come here and help me with them!" When he took up an
investigation, he soon discovered that it led to others on all
sides.
Some of his papers were not published, as Ulrich would not
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EDWARD OSCAR ULRICH
RUEDEMANN
compromise with the truth as he saw it. Such a paper concerned
the Richmond question. The problem was whether this formation was to be mapped as uppermost Ordovician or lowest
Silurian. The writer went out with him into the field when
he was seeking the solution of the problem in the western New
York Silurian, especially the Medina formation.
In April 1931, at the annual dinner of the National Academy
of Sciences, when the writer had the honor and great pleasure
of handing Dr. Ulrich the Mary Clark Thompson Medal for his
outstanding contributions to geology and paleontology, he
pointed out that Ulrich used his immense knowledge first in
continent-wide distinctions and correlations of Paleozoic formations and finally in intercontinental comparisons, all this
with decisive and undoubtedly lasting results; further, that much
of our Paleozoic paleogeography is based on his work; that he
recognized that the Paleozoic epicontinental seas of this continent were a multitude of small basins and troughs rather than
the wide inundations before assumed, and, finally, that we have
to thank him for determining that the evolution of the faunas
did not take place in these basins but in the ocean along the
edge of the continent.
Doctor Ulrich always claimed that the American marine succession is the most complete and best determined and therefore
the best fitted for recognition as the world standard in classifying Paleozoic events. 1 had much fun on our trip in Europe
in 1922 listening to his strenuous arguments with foreign geologists about this problem. He would always bring it up on the
first occasion offered; it almost seemed to me that it was one
of the principal purposes of his trip to spread this gospel among
the "backward" European geologists. He made six trips to
Europe between 1922 and 1931 to check his results in America
with the classic outcrops abroad.
Ulrich resumed the European field trips in the summer of
1925, when, in company with his friends Prof. Richard M. Field,
the late Milton Fulle and the late Charles E. Resser, stratigraphic problems were studied in Great Britain, Norway and
Bohemia. The next year he returned to Europe for the Inter273
NATIONAL ACADEMY BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS
VOL. XXIV
national Geological Congress in Madrid and further study of
European stratigraphy. Further trips mostly to the British
Isles followed in 1927, 1929 and 1931.
Finally, in the early summer of 1933 the Washington papers
copied a London announcement that Miss Lydia Sennhauser and
Dr. E. O. Ulrich had been married there on June 20, with
Dr. C. J. Stubblefield of the Geological Survey of Great
Britain officiating as best man. My wife and I can heartily
verify by our own observation Dr. Bassler's statement as to
their happiness. Bassler writes in his Memorial: "Knowing
Mrs. Ulrich and her genial, sympathetic nature, his friends
realized that the rest of Uncle Ed's life would be free from
any cares and responsibilities which might restrict him in
carrying on his studies." Lydia told me on the steamer in 1922
about her arduous work as nurse in Davos, a famous resort for
consumptives in Switzerland. There is no doubt in my mind
that she proved a godsend to the aged scientist in his declining
years. She is probably very proud to have been the wife of
such a great scientist.
Anyone who visited Ulrich in his office could not fail to
observe how he was at all times ready to help out his colleagues
from his great store of information. They would come into
his office without hesitation and get his advice on various geologic problems. He ate his simple lunch in his office, and even
that time would be used for discussion.
Dr. Ulrich was an original fellow of the Geological Society
of America and also of the Paleontological Society. Well earned
honors came to him from America and foreign countries. Dr.
Bassler lists them as follows: "He served as president both of
the Paleontological Society and the Washington Geological Society. He was a member of the Washington Academy of
Sciences, the National Academy of Sciences (1917), the
Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia (1932), of Sigma
Xi (1936), Foreign Correspondent of the Geological Society
of London (1927), the Geological Society of Stockholm (1927)
and of the Senckenberg Institution (1933). His name was
starred as early as 1910 in American Men of Science. Various
274
EDWARD OSCAR ULRICH
RUEDEMANN
honors in recognition of his researches came to him. In 1931
the National Academy of Sciences awarded him the Mary Clark
Thompson Medal, as noted above, and in 1932 the Geological
Society of America presented him with the Penrose Medal for
distinguished attainment and outstanding contributions to the
science of geology."
Owing to his strong physique, he held up well both physically
and mentally until shortly before the end. In spite of the
crowded conditions in Washington, he would insist on the long
bus ride to the Museum every day until several months before
the end. The latter came early in the morning of February
22, 1944, when he passed into a gentle sleep from which he did
not awake.
Ulrich's fame is established forever among geologists, and a
host of younger generations of geologists will remember him
for many years to come with love and admiration.
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VOL. XXIV
KEY TO ABBREVIATIONS USED IN BIBLIOGRAPHY
Amer. Geol. = American Geologist.
Amer. Jour. Sci. = American Journal of Science.
Cin. Soc. Nat. Hist. Journ. = Cincinnati Society of Natural History,
Journal.
Geol. Soc. Amer. Bull. — Geological Society of America, Bulletin.
Geol. Soc. Amer. Sp. Pa. — Geological Society of America, Special
Papers.
111. Geol. Sur. = Illinois Geological Survey.
Md. Geol. Sur. = Maryland Geological Survey.
Minn. Geol. Nat. Hist. Sur. := Minnesota Geological and Natural History
Survey.
N. Y. State Mus. Bull. = New York State Museum, Bulletin.
Ohio Geol. Sur. = Ohio Geological Survey.
Okla. Geol. Sur. Bull. = Oklahoma Geological Survey, Bulletin.
Smith. Inst. Ann. Rep. = Smithsonian Institution, Annual Report.
Smith. Misc. Coll. = Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections.
U. S. Geol. Sur. Bull. = United States Geological Survey, Bulletin.
U. S. Nat. Mus. Proc. = United States National Museum, Proceedings.
Wash. Acad. Sci. Jour. = Washington Academy of Sciences, Journal.
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF MORE IMPORTANT WORKS OF
EDWARD OSCAR ULRICH
1878
Observations of fossil annelids and description of some new forms. Cin.
Soc. Nat. Hist. Journ., 1, pp. 87-91, 1 pi.
1882-1884
American Paleozoic Bryozoa. Cin. Soc. Nat. Hist. Journ., 5, 1882, pp.
121-175, 232-257; 6, 1883, pp. 82-92, 148-168, 245-279; 7, 1884, pp.
24-51.
1886
Report on the Lower Silurian Bryozoa, with preliminary description of
some of the new species. Minn. Geol. Nat. Hist. Sur., Fourteenth
Ann. Rcpt. for 1885, pp. 57-103.
A correlation of the Lower Silurian horizons of Tennessee and part of
the Ohio and Mississippi Valleys with those of New York and Canada. Amer. Geol., 1, pp. 100-110, 179-190, 305-315; 2, pp. 39-44.
276
EDWARD OSCAR ULRICH
RUEDEMANN
1890
American Paleozoic sponges. 111. Geol. Sur., 8, pp. 209-241, 243-251,
(With Oliver Everett) 253-282.
Paleozoic Bryozoa. 111. Geol. Sur., 8, pp. 283-688.
New and little known American Paleozoic Ostracoda. Cin. Soc. Nat.
Hist. Journ., 13, pp. 104-137, 173-211, pi. 7-18.
New Latnellibranchiata. Amer. Geol., 5, pp. 270-284; 6, pp. 173-181,
382-389.
1892
New Lower Silurian Lamellibranchiata, chiefly from Minnesota rocks.
Minn. Geol. Nat. Hist. Sur., Nineteenth Ann. Rept, pp. 211-248.
1893
New and little known Lamellibranchiata from the Lower Silurian rocks
of Ohio and adjacent states. Ohio Geol. Sur., 7, pp. 627-693.
1895
On Lower Silurian Bryozoa of Minnesota. Minn. Geol. Nat. Hist. Sur.,
Final Report, 3, part 1, pp. 96-332, pi. 1-28, text fig. 8-20.
(With N. H. Winchell) Historical sketch of investigation of Lower
Silurian in the LIpper Mississippi Valley. Minn. Geol. Nat. Hist.
Sur., Final Report, 3, part 1, pp. ix-liv.
1897
(With N. H. Winchell) The Lower Silurian deposits of the Upper
Mississippi; a correlation of the strata with those in the Cincinnati, Tennessee, New York, and Canadian provinces and the stratigraphic and geographic distribution of the fossils. Minn. Geol. Nat.
His. Sur., Paleontology, 3, part 2, pp. lxxxviii-cxxix.
The Lower Silurian Lamellibranchiata of Minnesota. Minn. Geo . Nat.
His. Sur., Paleontology, 3, part 2, pp. 475-628, pi. xxxv-xlii.
The Lower Silurian Ostracoda of Minnesota. Minn. Geol. Nat. His.
Sur., Paleontology, 3, part 2, pp. 629-693, pi. xliii-xlvi, text fig. 46-52.
(With W. H. Scofield) The Lower Silurian Gastropoda of Minnesota.
Minn. Geol. Nat. His. Sur., Paleontology, 3, part 2, pp. 813-1081, pi.
lxi-lxxxii, text fig. 1-12.
1902
(With Charles Schuchert) Paleozoic seas and barriers in eastern North
America. N. Y. State Mus. Bull. 52, pp. 633-663.
1903
(With W. S. T. Smith) Lead, zinc, and fluorspar deposits of western
Kentucky. U. S. Geol. Sur. Bull. 213, pp. 205-213.
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NATIONAL ACADEMY BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS
(With C. W. Hayes) Columbia folio, Tennessee.
Geological Atlas, Folio 95, pp. 1-6.
VOL. XXIV
U. S. Geol. Sur.,
1904
(With Ray S. Bassler) A revision of the Paleozoic Bryozoa. Part I.
On genera and species of Ctenostomata. Smith. Misc. Coll., 45, pp.
256-294, 4 pi., 2 text fig.
(With Ray S. Bassler) A revision of the Paleozoic Bryozoa. Part II.
On genera and species of Trepostomata. Smith. Misc. Coll., 47, pp.
15-55, 9 pi.
1905
(With G. I. Adams) Fayetteville folio, Arkansas-Missouri. U. S. Geol.
Sur., Geological Atlas, Folio 119, pp. 1-6.
Lead, zinc, and fluorspar deposits of western Kentucky. Part I, Geology
and general relations. U. S. Geol. Sur., Professional Paper 36, pp.
15-105, 7 pi.
(With H. Foster Bain) The copper deposits of Missouri. U. S. Geol
Sur., Bull. 267, 52 pages, 1 pi., 2 text fig.
1908
(With Ray S. Bassler) New American Paleozoic Ostracoda. U. S. Nat.
Mus. Proc, 35, pp. 277-340, 8 pi., 64 text fig.
1910
(With A. P. Cushing) Age and relations of the Little Falls dolomite
(Calciferous) of the Mohawk Valley. N. Y. State Mus. Bull. 140,
pp. 97-140.
1911
Revision of the Paleozoic systems. Geol. Soc. Amer. Bull., 22, pp. 281-680,
5 P l.
1912
The Chattanooga series, with special reference to the Ohio shale problem.
Amer. Jour. Sci., 4th series, 34, pp. 157-183 3 fig.
1913
The Ordovician-Silurian boundary. Twelfth International Geological
Congress, Canada, Comptes Rendus, pp. 592-667, maps, 1 table
(1914). Advance Copy 1913.
1916
Correlation by displacements of the strand-line and the function and
proper use of fossils in correlation. Geol. Soc. Amer. Bull., 27.
pp. 451-490.
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EDWARD OSCAR ULRICH
EUEDEMANN
1917
Formations of the Chester series in western Kentucky and their correlates elsewhere, hi Kentucky Geological Survey, Mississippian
formations of western Kentucky, 272 pages, 11 plates.
1920
Major causes of land and sea oscillations. Wash. Acad. Sci. Jour., 10,
pp. 57-78, 4 fig.; Smith. Jnst. Ann. Kept, for 1920, pp. 321-337, 4
fig., 1922.
1923
(With Ray S. Bassler) American Silurian formations. Md. Geol. Sur.,
Silurian, pp. 233-270, 8 fig.
(With Ray S. Bassler) Monograph, Paleozoic Ostracoda—their morphology, classification, and occurrence. Md. Geol. Sur., Silurian, pp.
271-391, 18 fig.
1926
(With Ray S. Bassler) A classification of the toothlike conodonts, with
descriptions of American Devonian and Mississippian species. U. S.
Nat. Mus. Proa, 68, pp. 1-63, 11 pi., S text fig.
Relative values of criteria used in drawing the Ordovician-Silurian
boundary. Geol. Soc. Amer. Bull, 37, pp. 279-348.
1927
Fossiliferous boulders in the Ouachita "Caney" shale and the age of the
shale containing them. Okla. Geol. Sur. Bull. 45, 48 pages, 6 pi.,
3 text fig.
1930
Ordovician trilobites of the Family Telephidae and concerned stratigraphic correlations. U. S. Nat. Mus. Proa, 76, pp. 1-101, pi. 1-8.
(With Charles Resser) The Cambrian of the Upper Mississippi Valley,
Part 1, Trilobita, Dikelocephalinae and Osceolinae. Public Museum
City Milwaukee, Bull., 12, pp. 1-222, 23 pi.
1931
(With Ray S. Bassler) Cambrian bivalved Crustacea of the order Conchostraca. U. S. Nat. Mus. Proa, 78, pp. 1-130, pi. 1-10.
1933
(With Charles E. Resser) The Cambrian of the Upper Mississippi Valley. Part II, Trilobita, Saukiinae. Public Museum City Milwaukee, Bull., 12, pp. 123-306, pi. 24-45.
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VOL. XXIV
1935
(With August F. Foerste) New genera of Ozarkian and Canadian
cephalopods. Denison Univ. Bull., 35, No. 17 (Scientific Laboratory,
Journal, 30), pp. 259-290, 1 pi.
1938
(With Gustav Arthur Cooper) Ozarkian and Canadian Brachiopoda.
Geol. Soc. Amer. Sp. Pa., number 13, viii, 323 pages, 58 pi., 14
text fig.
1942
(With August F. Foerste, Arthur K. Miller, and W. M. Furnish)
Ozarkian and Canadian Cephalopods, Part I (Nautilicones). Geol.
Soc. Amer. Sp. Pa., number 37, x, 157 pages, 57 pi., 23 text fig.
1943
(With August F. Foerste and A. K. Miller) Ozarkian and Canadian
Cephalopods, Part II (Brevicones). Geol. Soc. Amer. Sp. Pa., number 49, x, 240 pages, 70 pi., 15 text fig., 1 table.
1944
(With August F. Foerste, A. K. Miller, and A. G. Unklesbay) Ozarkian
and Canadian Cephalopods, Part III (Longicones and Summary).
Geol. Soc. Amer. Sp. Pa., number 58, x, 226 pages, 68 pi., 9 text
fig., 1 table.
280